A car's interior is small and closed, and it may be easily polluted. Further, such pollution becomes more serious due to fine dust and all kinds of pollutants in a city. With the continuous increase in the distribution rate of vehicles as well as with the extension in a driver's staying time in his or her vehicle, studies on the maintenance of air freshness inside the vehicle have been made.
An example for the purification of the car's interior is disclosed in Korean Patent Publication Laid-Open No. 10-2004-97758 entitled ‘air purifier for vehicle’, which is adapted to allow the microorganisms collected through the process of air purification to be sterilized to introduce more clean air into the interior of the vehicle. As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional air purifier for a vehicle includes a case 50 having an inlet 51 and an outlet 52, a first filter 60 disposed behind the inlet 51 to collect foreign matters or dust thereto, an electrostatic dust collector 70 adapted to allow fine dust to adhere thereto through discharging of electricity, a second filter 90 disposed in front of the outlet 52 of the case 50, coated with a photocatalyst, and adapted to dissolve organic matters and sterilize harmful microorganisms, and an ultraviolet lamp 80 disposed between the electrostatic dust collector 70 and the second filter 90 to activate the photocatalyst of the second filter 90.
Under the above-mentioned configuration, the conventional air purifier for a vehicle can sterilize the harmful microorganisms and at the same time dissolve the organic matters through the photocatalyst activated by the ultraviolet rays irradiated from the ultraviolet lamp 80, thereby removing bad odor generation sources. In more detail, the air introduced through the inlet 51 of the case 50 is filtered through the first filter 60, and in this case, the first filter 60 serves to filter dust having relatively large particle sizes. The primarily filtered air is then introduced into the electrostatic dust collector 70, and in this case, if power is supplied through a power supply part 73, fine dust particles charged by a discharge electrode 71 adhere to a dust collection electrode 72. Accordingly, the fine dust passing through the first filter 60 is removed by means of the electrostatic dust collector 70. While the air passing through the electrostatic dust collector 70 is flowing to the second filter 90, microorganisms like germs or molds contained in the air are sterilized by means of the ultraviolet rays irradiated from the ultraviolet lamp 80. Further, the second filter 90 dissolves the organic matters like ammonia by using the photocatalyst activated by the ultraviolet rays irradiated from the ultraviolet lamp 80, thereby avoiding the generation of bad odors, and also, it sterilizes and removes the harmful microorganisms like germs or molds contained in the collected fine dust. Accordingly, the air discharged through the outlet 52 of the case 50 becomes clean so that it does not contain any dust and harmful microorganisms therein.
So as to purify the indoor air of the vehicle, that is, the conventional air purifier for a vehicle has the various filters to which fine dust is collected and the ultraviolet lamp for sterilization.
By the way, fine dust collection is classified into a filtering way in which dust particles having given diameters or more are filtered through a dust filter, a collecting way in which germs, molds and bad odor generation sources are collected through an activated carbon filter, and a collecting way in which dust is discharged to have a given charge and is then collected.
The dust filter and the activated carbon filter remove the dust through collection, so that they should be exchanged with new ones. Contrarily, the filter used for the electrostatic dust collection is not exchanged at all with new one, and it can effectively remove even small particles.
FIG. 2 is a schematic view showing a dust collection operation of the electrostatic dust collector 70 as the filter used for the electrostatic dust collection, and as shown, the electrostatic dust collector 70 includes the discharge electrode 71 having a discharge plate 71a and a discharge pin 71b for charging introduced dust D by means of corona discharge and the dust collection electrode 72 for collecting the dust D′ charged through the discharge electrode 71 thereto.
By the way, the electrostatic dust collector 70 as shown in FIG. 2 is charged by means of the corona discharge, thereby causing electromagnetic wave noise and ozone to be generated from the sharp end of the discharge pin 71b. As a result, undesirably, the electromagnetic wave noise obstructs the operations of various equipment at the interior of the vehicle, and the ozone is harmful to the human body, so that there is a need to provide separate means for removing the ozone.
Accordingly, the present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems occurring in the prior art, and it is an object of the present invention to provide an electrification apparatus for an electrostatic dust collector that has high electrification performance through protrusions each having a plurality of fine conductive fibers, thereby reducing harmful ozone and electromagnetic waves.